


warmth in the cold corners

by extasiswings



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Timeless Fanfic Prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-25
Updated: 2017-07-25
Packaged: 2018-12-06 22:57:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11610693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/extasiswings/pseuds/extasiswings
Summary: For the July Fanfic Contest. Prompt #3.Am I dead?“No, but you’re going to wish you were.” Flynn’s voice is gravel and smoke, the way it drips into his ears calling to mind Bond movies and back rooms and expensive liquors. The roughness of it is strangely comforting as he glances over to see the man himself, his gaze also fixed on the body in the chair.“You know,” Wyatt says. “No offense, but if I’m going to hallucinate someone, you’re not exactly the first person I would pick.”“Take it up with your subconscious.”





	warmth in the cold corners

Wyatt knows there’s something wrong as soon as he opens his eyes. His head aches, but is also blank, fuzzed over as if someone has hollowed out his brain and stuffed it full of cotton. It takes effort to think, to notice the strain in his shoulders from the ropes wrenching his wrists behind his back, to comprehend the lighting in the room—so bright that it almost becomes dim as his vision swims, his eyes struggling to focus.

The one thing he does know is wherever he is, whatever is going on is not good.

“You’re awake. Good.” 

Emma Whitmore slinks into the room with all the grace of a lioness stalking her prey. Although her jacket shields her from the chill of the room, there’s not even a speck of warmth in her eyes.

Wyatt shivers. 

“For a moment there I thought we might have to take drastic measures,” she adds. 

The thing is, it’s probably better _not_ to sass people who have your life in their hands, but either he’s been spending too much time with Rufus and Flynn or whatever they drugged him with did a number on his filter because what comes out of his mouth is:

“I’d apologize for being such an inconvenience, but you did kidnap me after all.”

“An unfortunate necessity,” Emma replies. “It would have been preferable to bring you over to our side amicably.”

“Yeah, that’s never going to happen.”

“Tell us where Lucy Preston is and we’ll let you go,” she offers. Wyatt smiles grimly.

“Yeah...that’s not going to happen either.”

Silence falls, broken a moment later by the snap of latex and the clink of metal as Emma pulls on a pair of gloves and examines the tray of instruments in the corner, finally selecting a scalpel and twirling it between her fingers.

“You know,” she acknowledges, “part of me was hoping you would say that. Shall we begin?”

_Wyatt Logan, Master Sergeant, Serial Number: 00462—_

* * *

After a while, he disconnects, leaves his bloody and broken body and revels in the numbness as he looks at himself from the outside. 

It’s not good. 

_Am I dead?_

“No, but you’re going to wish you were.” Flynn’s voice is gravel and smoke, the way it drips into his ears calling to mind Bond movies and back rooms and expensive liquors. The roughness of it is strangely comforting as he glances over to see the man himself, his gaze also fixed on the body in the chair.

“You know,” Wyatt says. “No offense, but if I’m going to hallucinate someone, you’re not exactly the first person I would pick.” 

“Take it up with your subconscious.”

Despite himself, Wyatt snorts. It’s nice to know that even as a hallucination, Flynn isn’t going to cut him any slack.

“You could tell them, you know,” Flynn says after a moment. “You’ve been gone for long enough by now that we know something is wrong. Rufus has probably already found us somewhere new and wiped away any trace of where we were before. They wouldn’t find us.”

Wyatt’s shaking his head long before Flynn even finishes speaking. “I can’t take that risk,” he replies. “Maybe you’re all gone by now. Maybe it would be fine. But I’m not risking your life—any of your lives—on a maybe.”

He looks over and meets Flynn’s gaze, dark and penetrating in the emptiness of the space. “Would _you_ risk it?” He asks.

The silence is all the answer he needs. 

“I didn’t think so.”

Wyatt glances down at himself again—Christ, he looks terrible. 

“They’re going to kill me, aren’t they?”

He’s not afraid of death, not really. When the nature of your job means that you could die at any moment, being afraid of it seems almost counterproductive. But this—the thought of dying like this in a freezing room, bloody and alone, at the hands of Rittenhouse—that staggers him. 

“We’ll save you.”

“Don’t,” Wyatt interrupts before any other platitudes can fall from Flynn’s lips. “You and me, we don’t lie to each other. Let’s not start now.”

“Why do you assume it’s a lie?” Flynn asks.

“Because—” Why? Doesn’t it have to be? “Because it wouldn’t make sense,” Wyatt replies. “The three of you can manage without me. Throwing yourselves into danger just to attempt a rescue would be…”

“Idiotic?” Flynn offers. “The height of recklessness and stupidity? Yes, and I’d be sure to point that out. But do you think that would matter to Lucy? To Rufus?”

Wyatt’s stomach sinks even as hope sparks in his chest.

_This isn’t real_ , he reminds himself. _Flynn isn’t here. It’s all in your head._

(Logic doesn’t seem to matter)

The door opens and a man enters with a syringe, the innocuous, clear liquid within somehow more shudder-inducing than if it had been neon blue or sickly green, something that would have more directly indicated _Warning, Bad Things Ahead_.

Wyatt turns to Flynn, already feeling the pull to return to himself.

“You’ll keep them safe?”

(It doesn’t matter if he’s a hallucination. It doesn’t matter that he’s not real. Wyatt needs to hear it anyway)

“Of course I will,” Flynn says quietly, and hallucination or not, the weight in those four words is more comforting than anything else he could have said.

* * *

When it comes, Wyatt’s barely conscious of the actual rescue. 

Whatever had been in the syringe burns in his veins but clouds his head, a filmy curtain dropping between bare knowledge and conscious thought that leaves him feeling more than a little drunk. Thankfully, it also makes his tongue clumsy enough that he can’t make words come even if he isn’t able to remind himself why telling them anything isn’t good.

As he swims in and out of consciousness, he catches hints of Emma shouting at the man who’d administered it. It’s sweet enough that he manages the smallest of smiles before she comes back to try again.

And then—

_Gunshots down the hall, shouting, slamming doors—_

Emma and mystery man vanish and for a moment Wyatt is alone. That is, until the door opens once more.

He lashes out on instinct when the ropes around him fall away, even slow and sluggish as he is, but an arm catches him around the shoulders and hauls him up.

“Easy,” the voice comes, the familiar gravel of it softening as if soothing a spooked horse. “Easy, Logan. It’s just me.”

“Flynn—” Wyatt’s stomach turns and he blanches as Flynn adjusts his hold on him.

“If you’re going to puke, don’t do it on me,” Flynn says.

(If he had the energy to laugh, he just might have)

“Asshole,” Wyatt replies.

“Of course. Now shut up and help me get you out of here.”

As it turns out, he’s really not much help, but he does at least manage to stay conscious and not leave Flynn with a pile of dead weight to drag along until they slide into the back of a van.

A voice swears. “What did they do to him?”

“Nothing good,” Flynn replies. 

“Is he going to be okay?” _Lucy…_

Flynn’s silence says more than enough.

If there’s anything else, Wyatt doesn’t catch it, the pain and sheer exhaustion weighing him down as black fills his vision and drags him under.

(He sleeps)

* * *

Wyatt wakes slowly, every muscle in his body twinging with even the slightest movement. His mouth is dry as a bone, as though he’s been eating sawdust or had fallen asleep in the middle of the desert. But...there’s a mattress beneath him, pillows under his head, blankets resting lightly over fresh bandages on his chest.

_You’re safe._

“You’re awake.”

Flynn leans against the doorframe, a glass of water in one hand, and raises the other when Wyatt struggles to push himself into a sitting position.

“Take it easy,” he says, crossing the room with just a few strides and setting the glass on the bedside table. “No need to hurt yourself.”

“Lucy?” Wyatt asks, words scraping his throat like sandpaper. “Rufus?”

“They’re fine,” Flynn assures. “Worried about you.”

“Why—why did you save me?”

He looks away.

“Flynn.” Wyatt reaches out and Flynn freezes, his eyes locked on where Wyatt’s fingers are curled into his sleeve. His throat works when he swallows and Wyatt tracks the motion with his eyes, waiting out the silence.

“We weren’t just going to leave you,” he says finally. “I wasn’t—well. We’re a team. Isn’t that what all of you have been trying to get through my head for the past several months? We don’t leave people behind.”

“It would have been smarter,” Wyatt points out.

“Fuck that.”

Flynn’s eyes meet his for a long beat and it’s Wyatt’s turn to swallow hard.

_They’re not taking anyone else from me_ , they say.

Without thinking, Wyatt tugs him down, ignoring the way his body protests anything that isn’t lying flat. But as rough as the movement was, the kiss he brushes over Flynn’s mouth is soft.

“Thank you,” he murmurs. 

Flynn gently unhooks Wyatt’s fingers from his shirt, squeezing his hand once as he releases it and steps back from the bed. 

“Get some more rest, Logan. You could use it.” 

And then he’s gone and Wyatt slides back down under the blankets.

He drifts. He dreams.

If his dreams are of Flynn, well, no one has to know.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to go 3/3 with Flogan fills for this month's prompts and I just made it. Title from "Up in Flames" by Ruelle.


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